скачать книгу бесплатно
“Aubrey, what’s the holdup?”
She shook herself. What had she expected, anyway? Beau Maddox wasn’t Remington Steele. “Coming.”
Inside it was worse than Aubrey had feared. The office was bigger than it appeared from the outside, narrow and deep. A battered reception desk sat near the door, unoccupied at the moment, but a half-full bottle of Dr Pepper sitting on it indicated the occupant wasn’t far away. A couple of other desks were arranged haphazardly around the main room, all of them messy but currently unused. In one corner was a home gym—a weight bench and a couple of machines with torn, blue-sparkle vinyl upholstery. The floor was partially covered with nasty blue indoor-outdoor carpeting, except where the concrete floor showed through huge rips and holes. The walls had been flat white once upon a time. Now they were dingy with fingerprints and God-knew-what.
A huge garbage can near the exact center of the room was full to overflowing with beer bottles and pizza cartons. Several beer bottles were strewn about the rest of the place as if it were a decorating statement. The acoustic tiles on the ceiling—the ones that weren’t missing—were stained and crumbling, and the ancient fluorescent light fixtures bathed the entire nightmare in anemic blue light.
One wall was entirely covered in Wanted posters. Several of the scary faces peering out from those posters had darts protruding from them.
“This place is completely gross,” Aubrey couldn’t help saying. “How can you stand working here?”
Beau smiled and shrugged as he looked around. “I don’t spend much time here, really. Hey,” he called out, “is anyone here?”
A door in the back opened and a striking woman close to Aubrey’s age appeared. She was tall, slender and large-breasted, but ultracasual in a snug black tank top, low-slung camouflage cargo pants and flip-flops. Her honey-blond hair was cut in a short, no-nonsense style, and she wore little if any makeup, which in no way detracted from her very feminine appearance.
She smiled at Beau. “Sorry, I was just in the bathroom,” she said without embarrassment. “Ace isn’t here, if that’s who you’re looking for. Who’s this?” She turned her winning smile on Aubrey.
Aubrey liked this woman immediately. She held out her hand. “Aubrey Schuyler.”
“Lori Bettencourt,” the other woman said, gripping Aubrey’s hand firmly. “I know this place is disgusting, and I apologize. But I told Ace when I came to work here that being a maid wasn’t part of my job description just because I’m the only woman. I clean up after myself and I try not to look at the rest. Though I do carry around a big bottle of Lysol.”
Aubrey found herself smiling back. “I like your attitude.”
“Actually,” Beau said, “I’m not looking for Ace. I’m looking for you.”
“Really? Need some help with a takedown?” she asked hopefully.
Aubrey watched Lori closely, trying to figure out if there was anything sexual between her and Beau. Not that it should matter. She didn’t give a rat’s behind who Beau slept with, she told herself sternly. But she found she was relieved when her radar didn’t pick up any sexual undercurrents between the two, though they obviously liked one another.
“Aubrey got a threatening phone call. I want you to trace it.”
Lori looked disappointed. “Just a phone call? Piece of cake.” She led the way to the desk farthest back from the front door, on which sat what looked to be an ancient computer with half its guts hanging out. But once Lori fired up the machine, Aubrey could see it was endowed with a powerful CPU and lots of state-of-the-art software.
Aubrey gave Lori her phone number and the approximate time of the call, then left her alone to do her thing.
“Is it legal, what she’s doing?” she asked Beau, who’d decided to pass the time by doing a few chin-ups on a bar that was part of the home gym.
“Beats me. I don’t care, long as she doesn’t get caught.”
That was typical, she thought, frowning. Beau seemed to have lost any semblance of a conscience once he’d left the police force. She reminded herself of that as she forced herself to stop watching his bulging biceps as he lifted his weight up and down in a seemingly tireless set.
The door from which Lori had emerged opened again, and a robust-looking man in his fifties appeared. “Hey, Lori, you want to do a—” He stopped when he spotted Beau. “Maddox. You find that Langford kid yet?”
“I’ve been checking out the day-care centers,” Beau replied, sounding unconcerned. “Nothing yet.”
The older man’s eyes locked on Aubrey. “Who’s this?”
“Aubrey Schuyler. Lori’s tracing a call for her. Aubrey, this is Ace McCullough. He owns the agency.”
Ace McCullough grinned, revealing two even rows of very white teeth. “Schuyler, Schuyler. Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Gavin Schuyler’s my brother.”
That seemed to be enough explanation. Ace quickly changed the subject. “Lori, will you be done pretty quick? I have an easy takedown, and I thought you might want to come with me.”
Lori’s eyes lit up with something Aubrey could only describe as yearning. “This won’t take long,” she assured Ace. “Don’t go without me.”
Beau finally tired of his chin-ups. Though he was hardly breathing hard, he did have a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. He picked up a towel that someone had slung over a barbell and wiped his face and neck with it. Aubrey shuddered to think about where that towel had been, or how long it had gone without seeing the inside of a washing machine.
“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?” Beau asked Ace in a soft voice. “With Lori, I mean. Glenn really didn’t want her here. Anyway, she’s just a kid.”
“She’s twenty-seven, hardly a kid,” Ace countered. “I don’t want to dishonor Glenn’s memory by going against his wishes, but Lori’s got bounty-hunting in her blood. If I hadn’t taken her in, she would have gone to work for some other agency—or worse, she’d have tried working on her own. At least if she’s working here, I can train her right, and keep an eye on her. And you have to admit, her computer skills have come in handy.”
“I guess you’re right,” Beau said grudgingly.
“Right now, I’m only letting her do the easy take-downs. This one’s an old lady with parking tickets who missed her court date, probably because she’s senile.”
Beau smiled. “Doesn’t sound too bad, though I once had a senile little old lady pull a Luger on me.”
The two men laughed, but Aubrey didn’t join in. The thought of the kind of danger Beau put himself in every day was intimidating. At least as a cop, he had the full weight of the law behind him and plenty of backup just a radio summons away. By his own account, when he’d been on the force he’d never even fired his weapon, or been fired at.
As a bounty hunter, his job was far riskier. Every day he went looking for trouble. She just didn’t understand why anyone would submit himself to that much risk. The Beau Maddox she’d known wasn’t an adrenaline junkie.
Aubrey returned her attention to Lori, who was scribbling something down on a piece of paper. Lori looked up.
“Bad news. The call came from a pay phone.”
Chapter Three
Beau cursed softly, and Aubrey sagged with her own disappointment. Finding the guy who’d assaulted her and threatened Patti wasn’t going to be easy. But she realized she would never feel completely safe until the guy was behind bars, and Patti and Sara were home where they belonged.
“I wrote the pay phone address down,” Lori said. “It’s not far from here, if you want to check it out.” She walked over and handed the piece of paper to Beau with the location of the pay phone. Then she looked at Ace. “Just let me get my stuff, and I’ll be ready.”
Aubrey was about to say thanks and slide on out of there herself. But her car was still at the motel.
“It’s only a few blocks,” Beau said. “We can walk over and have a look. Chances are our guy lives or works close by. The information might help us narrow the search if we get any more leads on this scumbag.”
When Lori returned from her desk up front, she wore a bulletproof vest. She had a Mace canister in one of the loops of her cargo pants, and an impossibly huge gun secured at the small of her back.
“Put a shirt on over that vest,” Beau said, looking as if he had to struggle to keep from laughing. “You might as well be wearing a neon sign over your head, Bounty Hunter In Training.”
Lori shot him a dirty look, but she did as he suggested.
Once they were back outside, Aubrey was relieved to be breathing fresh air again. “I don’t know how she stands it,” she said to Beau as they set out to find the pay phone.
“Lori? How she stands what?”
“That place you work at. It’s repulsive. Might as well be working in a men’s locker room. I’m surprised there wasn’t dirty laundry all over the floor.”
Beau only grinned. “You didn’t see the back room. Or the kitchen. It’s enough to make a health inspector faint.”
“You sound almost proud.”
“Hey, it took us years to get that place to such a high degree of disreputableness.”
Aubrey gave up. Men were disgusting. She should probably be glad she hadn’t yet married one. Maybe she never would.
The block where the pay phone was located was even worse than the one that housed First Strike. Aubrey spotted several seedy-looking bars, a head shop, an adult bookstore, an adult video store, an out-of-business dry cleaner, a thrift store and a dollar store. Judging from the clientele she saw loitering in various doorways, this was the neighborhood where the more adventurous college students from University of East Texas hung out. If she recognized any of her students here, she was going to call their mothers.
“Hey, my man, what’s happening?” A young African-American man came out of a doorway to give Beau a high five.
“Hey, Junior.”
“You know these people?” Aubrey whispered after they’d passed.
“Some of them. Finding fugitives requires information, sometimes from the less-elevated echelons of society. So I make it a point to get to know these folks. They’ll tell me stuff they’d never tell a cop.”
The pay phone was in use, and it appeared to have a line of young men waiting to use it.
“Is there something special about this phone?” she asked.
“Kids use it for dealing drugs and calling prostitutes,” Beau explained. “They don’t want any numbers they can’t explain showing up on the cell phone bill Mom and Dad pay every month.”
“You’d think the police would do something!” Aubrey said, indignant.
“It’s not against the law to use the phone.”
“They could follow these kids. Find out who they’re buying drugs from. Or selling drugs to.”
“Too labor-intensive. Not enough manpower. Not enough budget. They’d rather spend their time arresting speeders and kids making U-turns at the wrong time of day. Easy arrests that pump up the statistics and fill the coffers.”
Aubrey realized she’d hit a nerve with Beau.
“Besides, if the cops tried to clean up this area, all my good snitches would be gone.” He seemed to enjoy the look of distaste on Aubrey’s face. But then he grew serious. “Look around. See anyone familiar hanging around the pay phone?”
Aubrey covertly studied the faces of the kids. “No.”
“How about any of the businesses around here? Ever remember Patti mentioning any of them?”
Aubrey studied each seedy little bar and bookstore. Finally she saw something that jogged her memory. “That bar over there, the one called Kink?”
“Yeah?”
“I think Patti used to be a waitress there, but it was a while ago.”
“Still, that might be the link we’re looking for.”
“Let’s go check it out.” She turned, but Beau grabbed her arm before she could get going.
“Wait. You know what kind of bar that is?”
“What do you mean? One that serves alcohol, I presume.”
“It’s an S&M bar.”
That stopped her cold. “You mean, like sadism and masochism?”
“I mean, people who dress in leather and studs and stick safety pins in parts of their bodies you don’t even want to think about. Outsiders aren’t welcome, and no one would tell us a thing. I might pass, but you’d stick out like a nun in a cathouse.”
“I beg your pardon. I can pass for sleazy and deviant if I want to.”
Beau just shook his head. “Not you, Squeak.”
“You know I hate that nickname.” Squeak stood for Squeaky Clean. Beau and Gavin had come up with it when she was in junior high, and they’d used it whenever they thought she was being too goody-goody.
“They’re not even open this time of day. We can go back later tonight, if you want. But we’ll have to dress the parts. Lori can probably help us out. She’s got all kinds of disguises.”
“Really.”
“She’s good at undercover work.” Beau took Aubrey’s arm and led her down the sidewalk. “We’ve been standing in one place too long. Don’t want to attract attention.” They headed away from the pay phone.
“Beau, does this mean I’ve hired you?”
“What?”
“Well, you were just doing me a favor to trace the number, and I appreciate it. But beyond that…” She shrugged. “I know you guys charge a fortune for your services. And I don’t have a fortune.”
His face clouded. “You don’t owe me a damn thing. I happen to have some time to kill, that’s all.”
“What about that Langford kid Ace mentioned? Shouldn’t you be looking for him?”
“I’ve been looking for him.” Frustration rose in Beau’s voice. “I have a lead, but I can’t do anything about it until tomorrow morning. Hey, I don’t tell you how to teach chemistry, okay?”
“Fine.” She determinedly walked ten paces ahead of him. Though she was tempted to call a cab and return to her motel, wash her hands completely of Beau Maddox, she knew she’d be a fool to turn down his help while he was willing to give it. If he made her uncomfortable, it was a small price to pay for getting his services for free.
As she turned the corner, she noticed a couple of young women sitting on a car, drinking sodas and talking in loud voices. They wore extremely short skirts, tight tank tops with no bras, excessive costume jewelry, big hair and tons of makeup. As soon as Aubrey realized what she was looking at, she averted her gaze and quickened her step.
Jeez, right here in broad daylight!
“Hey, Beau!” one of the women called out. Aubrey froze and turned around. Sure enough, Beau had stopped to talk with the women. Should she walk on? Should she stand a discreet distance away and wait for him to finish his chat?
Finally she decided she was being silly and judgmental. They might be prostitutes, but she still owed them simple courtesy. She approached the car, and Beau angled his body out to include her in the group.
“Jodie, Erin, this is my friend, Aub—”
“Dr. Schuyler!” the one called Erin exclaimed. “Oh, my God. I had you for freshman chemistry!”
The other girl, Jodie, smirked. “You took chemistry?”
